Landscape
by karebear
Summary: "We believe in shouting for those who can only whisper, in defending those who cannot defend themselves." - Dauntless manifesto. A collection of brief glimpses into the important hot-spots of Tobias' life.
1. Choice

Someone slips the knife into my hand, and I grip it tightly, studying it for just a fraction of a second before my eyes flicker up to the volunteer officiating the ceremony. I am aware of the crowd, all these eyes watching me, the way I've watched all the others who've gone before me. Almost all of them chose their own factions. It must be nice to feel like you belong. The crowd starts to stir, growing restless and uncertain as I stand there, without moving. The Abnegation instincts that are impossible to silence immediately kindle an unsettling churn of guilt in the pit of my stomach. I am making others uncomfortable. It is unacceptable. I know what I have to do.

I rest the knife across the palm of my left hand. But I don't make the cut.

"You have to choose," the official says, softly, gently. But firmly. I nod, but I still feel paralyzed. I draw in a shaky breath and grind my teeth. Somewhere out there among the hundreds of shadowy figures under the bright lights is my father. He'll be furious - silently, of course - because we're Abnegation. We do not call attention to ourselves, and it certainly won't be lost on him that that is exactly what I'm doing now. I am certain that no one has ever stood in the middle of this circle as long as I have, now. I've seen a few of the other Abnegation flinch when their fingers close around the knife. Abnegation avoid weapons at all costs.

Well, that's what everybody else thinks anyway. We do cook, and kitchen knives are still sharp enough to cut. To kill. I've held one in my hand and thought about it - silently of course, and never for long. My father always glanced up from his place at the dining table for just long enough that I was _certain _he could read my thoughts, so I buried them, because that's what we _do_. I swallowed my selfish _feelings_ and set his plate in front of him and answered his questions politely, the way I'd been taught. Sometimes I succeeded. Sometimes, my act wasn't _quite_ skilled enough. The truth is, anything can be a weapon. We're not supposed to have them in Abnegation, but I bet whoever made up those rules didn't think to count a simple leather belt. Like all the rest of our clothes, it's designed not to draw a second glance. Except from me. I can picture every detail of that not-weapon: its texture, its weight, the cold shock of the metal buckle hitting my sensitive flesh, hard and deep. That has happened exactly twice, and I wasn't sure then and I'm not sure now if it was an accidental slip or an intentional strike. My father gave me no clues either way. He never does. He stopped, both times, without a word, wrapping the belt around his fist and latching the door behind him, leaving me alone in the dark. He'd open it again, still silent, after hours or days. I'd sneak a glance at his face, looking for some hint of anger, or disappointment, but of course there was never anything there. My father doesn't get angry. He never threatens. He is always _calm_. I have learned to read the warnings in subtle gestures and glances. I bet I'm almost as good as a Candor at that. But I could never be a Candor; all I do is lie. I go to school, and follow all the rules and never draw attention, as the lingering pain, the hunger gnawing at my belly, the fear of the dark, all team up to give him what he wants. Silence. Obedience. Selflessness. He's teaching me what is means to be Abnegation. It's for my own good.

I could do it, still. It's not outside the realm of possibility. My eyes linger on the stone inside its bowl, both familiar, unobtrusive gray. I belong in Abnegation. It's home. The initiation is easy: no one has ever failed. I already know how to be invisible. I would leave my father's house and live with the others who have chosen our Faction; eventually I would move out on my own. Faction Before Blood, even for those who choose to stay. He would never say anything; I wouldn't either. But he is still a Faction Leader; if I choose to stay, I will never be free of him. It's _such _a selfish thought: not Abnegation at all.

I swallow hard and spin around, toward the burning heat and fire radiating from the metal bowl behind me. Dauntless. Fearless. Yeah, right. I'm terrified; afraid of my father and afraid of myself. I let my eyes slip closed, and pull the knife across my skin. The blood wells up surprisingly quickly. I can feel its warmth. Some of in dribbles onto the floor, the rest pools into the cup I form when I curl my hand around it. It doesn't hurt at all.

I let myself smile as I fling my hand open, allowing my blood to drip down into the waiting bowl.

* * *

**General notes about this story:** I'm posting it in the interests of clearing words off of my hard drive, because they deserve better than lingering eternally and not going anywhere. It'll be updated unpredictably and will not be in chronological order (it will however, be in some form of _logical_ order).

Also... there are possible triggers for child abuse all throughout. Obviously. It's Tobias.


	2. Test

I sit in the crowded cafeteria, at the end of an empty table near the door, waiting. I watch without being obvious about it, because too much curiosity isn't good, asking questions calls attention, and attention is something I learned to avoid a long time ago. But a little bit of curiosity is okay. Knowing what people need... you can only do that if you watch them.

Anyway, even in our little Abnegation corner of the room, we're still _high-schoolers_. There're snatches of quiet conversation, except that nobody will ask about the one thing we all really want to know. I let my eyes flick back and forth between my faction peers and the other groups scattered around. The Amity kids are laughing, smiling. A couple of them are even _running_, tossing a ball back and forth. I guess if you're from Amity the aptitude test wouldn't be anything to worry about. I'm pretty sure I don't belong with them. A group of Erudite sit directly across the room from me, and like my table, they are mostly quiet. Most of them are reading, holding paperbacks in their hand, or leaning over a huge textbook spread out on the table. A few of them whisper questions back and forth every now and then. And since I'm watching, I can tell that a couple of them are just _pretending _to read. They shift and move around too much and don't turn the page nearly often enough. They must be smart enough to pick up on the keyed-up tension in the room. It's hard to avoid. One of them glances up, almost directly at me. I look away.

One by one, names are called and people file out of the cafeteria into the little locked cells that are used for testing rooms. Whenever the door opens, I sneak a glance and try to see what I can of the place, some idea of what to expect. At least the lights are on in there, which is one-up on Marcus' closet, but I still don't like the idea of being trapped without knowing the way out. At this point I'm pretty good at powering through anxiety. I'm not jittery or distracted or bothered by the upcoming examination in any visible way. I'm just waiting quietly, which is what every would expect from Abnegation, so that works out.

I'm the last one left from my faction. Time trickles by. I wait it out. Waiting is not so hard. I spend most of my life waiting for Marcus; waiting for him to get home, waiting for words: orders or commands, waiting to see if I've lived up to his expectations, waiting for punishment when I don't. I feel like my whole life is spent holding my breath, on the edge of suffocation. I may possibly the one sixteen-year-old in the history of this town who doesn't give a damn about this test. I've already half-decided I'm going to leave and be factionless anyway. I already don't belong, I don't have any friends. But it's only half-decided. Because the other half still flinches away from Marcus' anger and disappointment, which is loud, and sounds like cracking leather. "Willful defiance" doesn't happen much anymore. Whippings don't either, actually, which you would think would be a good thing, but it just makes the waiting worse. Sometimes I will do something intentionally to provoke him just so I don't choke on uncertain anticipation. Something like running away to join the factionless? No. I've talked about it since I was a kid, thought about it, yelled about it to Marcus even, and accepted the consequences for that. But I know I'll never actually do it.

I slide my fingernail between my teeth and nibble at it. Out of the corner of my eye I watch a Dauntless girl scribbling on her skin with black marker. She's the next one called. And then I am. I push my way into the little closet-chamber. The door shuts automatically and I calmly ignore it. I wait for the test proctor - an Erudite like most of the other adults who work in the school - to tell me to sit down before I drop into the chair that looks like the ones in a dentist's office. I pull away when her fingers brush across my forehead.

"Relax," she tells me, sounding slightly irritable. But I don't. I sit up straight and glare at the tangle of wires clutched in her hand. "It won't _hurt_," she demands. I shrug. It's not hurting that I'm particularly worried about. But I sink back into the chair and let her connect the diodes to my scalp.

The test is easy. I don't think. I don't wait.

I attack a rabid, violent dog with all the anger that I've kept barely controlled, just below the surface. I do it to protect a little boy who watches me quietly, hiding at the corner of my eye. He wears Abnegation gray, just like I do, except my clothes get stained with dark red blood. It pools over my fingers. "It's for your own good," I snarl, as I carve at the dead dog's corpse. My heart beats really fast and it doesn't slow down even when the image flickers and fades out and is replaced by something else.

I'm on a bus like the ones I've ridden aimlessly around the city when I couldn't stand the thought of going home. I'm alone on it, except for the driver hidden behind his thick plastic shield, and an older man wrapped in a worn, dirty coat. He glares at me, and I duck my head and stare out the window, signaling with my body language that I am not worth looking at. But I can still feel his eyes on me. My skin crawls and itches and heats up. I glance upward, not directly meeting his eyes. He holds up a newspaper, with an unusually large picture on the front. "Boy, do you know this man?" He sounds like Marcus. I look at the newspaper so I don't have to look at him, and my stomach squirms, because I _do_ recognize the man in the picture even though I'm not sure where I know him from. And I know that this truth will get me in trouble. "Do you know him?" the man repeats. I nod.

But it isn't enough. I have to look up at him, to take responsibility for my own actions, to accept the consequences. "Yes," I whisper.

The image snaps out much more suddenly this time. I open my eyes to the glaring lights of the testing room. I frown. What was that about?

The Erudite woman stares at me with wide eyes. Her fingers clench tightly around her console, and her breathing is just slightly strained, betraying a nervous tension. I stand up and push against the door, but it obviously won't open until she tells it to. My stomach starts to twist. I didn't do it wrong, did I? What the hell _was _that? _Can _you do it wrong?

I wait, but I keep my hand pressed against the door. "Tobias," she tells me evenly. "What I'm about to tell you, you cannot tell anyone. Ever. Do you understand?" I flinch, still rattled by the adrenaline flowing through my blood, and the questions I'm not allowed to ask.

"Yes, sir," I reply dully. Don't tell. Yeah, I understand. In the haze, it takes me half a second to realize where I am and who I'm _not _talking to. "Ma'am, I mean," I correct myself awkwardly. "Sorry."

She shrugs, as if that hardly matters. I don't speak. The Erudite doesn't look at me. She talks to her monitors and charts. "Tobias, your scores are inconclusive."

_Inconclusive?_

"What does that mean?" I blurt out, aware even as I do so that this is the kind of question I shouldn't ask. But an Erudite is hardly going to be upset by a little bit of curiosity.

"It means you're in danger," she tells me, not particularly helpfully. "If anyone asks, you scored Abnegation." She shrugs, and flashes me a sickly, ironic smile. "You're going to have to lie."


	3. fear

I could say that I got lost. Or that I lost track of time. They are both lies, and lying is not a good idea. But, maybe just today, telling the truth would be an even worse idea. I'm trying to figure out my story as I walk back home through the long, decaying streets of the factionless sector, but it turns out not to matter, because Marcus has come looking for me. Marcus - I don't call him Father anymore, especially not in my head. I pretend we're not related at all. I ignore his existence as much as possible.

I cannot ignore his existence now. He is more furious than I have ever seen him. His eyes are practically bulging out of their sockets. He doesn't seem capable of speaking. I swallow hard, and duck my head, trying to make myself invisible. Which obviously doesn't work, because Marcus slaps me across the face, so hard I taste blood. His fingers are still wrapped tightly around my arm. I stare up at him, momentarily shocked into stillness. He's never hit me like that before. Just with the belt, and that's not hitting, it's _discipline_. I used to be scared of it, but I'm not anymore. Oh, don't get me wrong, I still hate it and hate _him_ and it still hurts, but I take the licks when he says I deserve them and sometimes I can even do it without crying. But this? My cheek throbs, and deeper pain spikes through my jawbone. I don't look away. Neither does Marcus. His face is red with rage, and tears spring to my eyes because I _am _scared. I struggle to draw in air while my body is mostly focused on compensating for the pain and fear and adrenaline surging through it.

"I'm sorry," I whine, like a little kid. I can't help it.

Marcus digs his fingers even more sharply into my arm and doesn't let go. I swear I can feel the bruises blooming. Lucky for him the streets of Abnegation are totally empty, although I have my doubts whether anyone would care if they did see us.

"What were you thinking, boy?" he snarls, as he shoves me into our house. I don't answer. I've learned over the past four years that these kinds of questions are rhetorical, which means I should not open my mouth when they are asked. I do try to pull away, to yank my fingers out of his grasp. If he's going to whip me at least I can make it my choice. He doesn't have to hold me still while he does it.

Except that he _still_ doesn't let go of me, and the look on his face is so twisted and angry that I sag beneath it and stop trying to fight. Marcus half-drags me up the stairs, and his grip on my arm is _really _starting to hurt, combining with my fear of what's coming and the shame and humiliation of his total control over me to overwhelm my already limited emotional defenses. I'm crying openly in a way I haven't for years, and he hasn't even touched his belt yet. We're standing just a few footsteps away from my room, but he doesn't send me in there with an order to wait for him. He doesn't say _anything_. My stomach starts to hurt, making me feel like I'm about to throw up. And then Marcus pushes me forward and I'm so startled when he finally lets go of me that I really do almost fall over. I stumble and manage to catch myself before I hit the ground. But while I'm doing that, the light goes away and I hear a latch click. I've landed in the closet - not by accident. Marcus pushed me in here, on purpose.

The door isn't that thick. I can _hear _him, on the other side. A tiny crack of light comes through between the bottom of the door and the floor. I slam myself against the door and scream at him to let me out but he doesn't. I pound my fist against the unyielding wall until it hurts worst than my still-throbbing cheek. In a stroke of brilliance, I start screaming all the curse words that I know, each one of which individually would normally earn me a beating. But the door stays locked. I listen, and I hear the creaking of the stairs. He's ignoring me. He's _leaving me here _and I can't get out. Panic rips at my stomach, making the about-to-throw-up feeling even worse. I curl up with my arms around my knees and duck my head, but I can still feel the walls pressing close around me. The ceiling above me is heavy and _pressing down_. My heartbeat speeds up and I start to gasp for air. I immediately abandon my short-lived pretense of calm and the power of positive thinking and I start to kick and punch at the door again, over and over. I fumble for the lock and twist and rattle it, but it stays firmly locked. I didn't even know this closet _could _lock. My bedroom doesn't, and neither do any of the other rooms in the house. My ears immediately start to ring with a high-pitched whining buzz. I stare at the light, and try again, unsuccessfully, to calm my breathing.

After what might be a few days (I find out later it was just under half an hour), the door swings open and Marcus looms over me. "Can I trust you not to go wandering where you shouldn't, boy?" he growls.

I nod, not trusting myself to speak. But that's not enough for him, _obviously_. He stares at me, waiting, without blinking. I scramble to my feet and cross my arms over my chest to steel myself and to make sure I've stopped shaking, and then I look up into his eyes. "Yes, sir," I insist. "I won't do it again."

Marcus finally nods, but his eyes are still hard and angry. And I taught him something he didn't know, I gave him a tool that's even more useful that the belt. Because now he knows that at thirteen years old, I'm still afraid of the dark.


	4. Consequences

"Do your chores, Tobias."

I draw in a shuddering breath and quickly wipe my sleeve across my face to get rid of the tears I can feel trailing down my cheeks. But I don't turn away from the window. I pretend I don't hear him.

It's raining outside, like the whole world is crying. At least _someone _is. At the funeral a lot of people told me they were sorry, but I didn't believe them. They read words from the Bible and they told stories about my mother and how helpful and selfless and perfect she was, and nobody cared or was angry or sad, except me. I squirmed in my chair until Father squeezed my shoulder so tightly it hurt. So I guess he was angry too. And I stopped and stayed still and kept not-listening.

Father rests his hand on my shoulder again now, gently this time. But he uses his larger body to turn me away from the window. He doesn't let go of me but he doesn't say anything either, until I look up because my own curiosity gets the better of me. Even though I know better than to actually _ask _what he wants.

"We must continue on with life," Father says, without actually looking at me. It sounds kinda like he's talking to himself, but I don't think that he is. "To do otherwise would be self-indulgent, and an insult to her memory."

It sounds like the same words he said at the funeral, the ones I didn't hear, and my stomach does little flip-flops and my fingers curl up tight into a fist and I want to fight him and I want to be allowed to cry and I _really_ don't care about doing my stupid _chores_, not today and not ever. Outside, the wind blows so hard that it makes the window rattle and the rain _pours _down loud and angry and I scream louder. "No!" I yell, because I just want someone to _hear me _for once. I can make him _listen_.

"Tobias," Father growls, one final warning, but I don't _care_.

"I hate you!" I cry, and now the tears are flowing but I don't care if he sees them anymore.

"You will not disrespect me, boy. Not even today."

He sighs, a long slow breathing-out so loud that I can hear it, and he closes his eyes for a moment and I see something flicker across his face, like he's sad too, but while I'm trying to figure that out, I hear something, and it's the sound of metal clicking against itself, because he's taking off his belt.

My heart starts beating really fast and it gets harder to breathe, because I'm scared, but I don't let him touch me. I run instead, up the stairs because it's the only direction that's _away_ from him. I can run really fast. Last year I won a medal in a race against the whole Lower School. But I didn't get to keep it because Abnegation isn't supposed to win anything. Father said I shouldn't have raced at all, but Mom told him that the physical education teacher required everyone to participate so he couldn't get mad. Remembering Mom slows me down, so I don't even make it all the way to my room before Father gets to the top of the stairs. His belt is looped around his fist, dangling from his hand. I watch it swing back and forth and I _don't _look at him.

"Tobias, there are consequences to your actions." He nods toward my room. "Go on."

"No!" I yell again.

I try to scramble back down the stairs because I plan to run away and join the factionless and he won't ever find me.

But he catches me by the arm before I make it three steps down. He lifts me up until my feet don't touch the ground anymore, and then he throws me down and lashes the belt across my back so hard that I start seeing flashes of bright light that I know aren't real.

I wriggle and kick and try to get out of the way, but he just presses down with his foot so that I can't move and he counts nine slow, steady strokes - which isn't _fair_ because he's already hit me way more times than that, but he didn't count them because I was trying to get away. Every single one _hurts_, and I'm crying so hard it feels like I'm choking and I don't think I could fight even if I wanted to, but I don't anymore. I stop squirming just like I did at the faction meeting, except this time I _can't _not-listen and not-feel. I hear the crack of the belt and the slap sound it makes against my skin and I hear my own heavy breathing and the crying that sounds almost like coughing. And I hear his stupid calm counting. It shouldn't take that long to count to nine but he makes it take a million years. And then he wraps his belt around his fist, like nothing ever happened, and he makes me look at him while he reminds me that this is for my own good.

"Do you understand, Tobias?" he asks quietly.

I understand a lot of things, but the most important thing to understand right now is how to lie and make him believe it. I take a careful breath and nod. "Yes, sir," I whisper.


End file.
